During the war an extraordinary feat of courage and daring was mounted in
Nigeria in January/February 1942. The object of the expedition was to cut
out from the Spanish island of Fernando Po, then of course neutral, a prestigious
Italian liner and a German supply tanker helping the German U-boats operating off the coast of West Africa. The Italian liner was the Duchesse D'Aosta which
had a cargo of valuable minerals from South America and had sought refuge in
a neutral port earlier in the War. The German tanker and supply ship was the
Likumba together with a large motorised barge called the Bibundi.
I write this account as a tribute to the courage and resourcefulness of my
brother officers of the Colonial Service in Eastern and Western Nigeria. Those
concerned were from the Administration, the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian
Marine Service, the PWD and others as well as elements of the SOE who had
come out from the UK to help organise the expedition. Nigeria had always had
close ties with Fernando Po in the Bight of Biafra. Indeed the coastal regions of
Nigeria had been largely opened up from Fernando Po, which had been the main
British naval base In West Africa (though nominally Spanish) for much of the 19th
century during Britain's major efforts to outlaw the slave trade across the Atlantic.
The Nigerian Government could not act directly against a neutral country and so
the expedition was an unofficial one and the Government was officially unaware
of it.
I first heard about the expedition in the late 1940s when Tony Abell, then a
Resident In Western Nigeria, visited my then Resident in llorin in Northern
Nigeria. I only heard a few details at the time but thought it very inspiring. I was
only reminded of the expedition when I myself visited Fernando Po in 1956 and
saw how in the small harbour of Santa Isabella ships were moored with stern
moorings to palm trees on the shore and their bows held by anchor facing out
to the mouth of the harbour. After my retirement from Northern Nigeria I came
across a book by Patrick Howarth on the work of the SOE during the War. The
account of the Fernando Po expedition there did not tally with what I had heard in
Nigeria and merely said the expedition was a SOE one and "was accompanied by
volunteers from the Nigeria Civil Service". Sometime later I was given a copy of
Bill Newington's account which differed considerably.
Bill Newington was a District Officer in Eastern Nigeria who had been involved
In security exercises with the RWAFF. Tony Abell was a senior DO from, I think,
Western Nigeria but the organisation of the expedition with the SOE and some
commandos seems to have been done by Lenard Guise, an ex-King's Messenger,
in conjunction with an officer called March-Phlllips. The RWAFF was also involved
in supplying equipment.
The expedition set out from Lagos in two tugs, the Vulcan, a large and powerful
Marine Service tug with fairly silent engines, and the Nuneaton, probably lent by
Elder Dempster Lines but with noisy and not very reliable diesel engines. The
object of the exercise was for the two tugs to go into Santa Isabella harbour in
the middle of the night, take any crew on board by surprise and get rid of them,
blow off the anchor chains and moorings with explosives and tow the ships out of
the harbour towards Nigeria as rapidly as possible. One of the British plantation
managers on the island was In the plot and had agreed to co-operate with the
expedition and organise a large party for the officers and crew of the enemy ships
to coincide with the attack.
As the Nuneaton was such a noisy tug it was decided that 2 two-man canoes
painted black would be sent in when she got close to the harbour to mount
the attack on the Likumba with complete surprise while the more powerful and
silent Vulcan went for the Duchesse D'Aosta and overcame her larger crew.
Bill Newington and Tony Abell went in one canoe and two commandos, one an
explosives expert, were in the other. Both canoes after a long struggle In the dark
reached their target, overcame the minimum of opposition and set their explosive
charges while waiting for the Nuneaton to come alongside and hitch on the tow
ropes. Meanwhile the Vulcan with her crew of 25 armed volunteers had gone
alongside the Italian liner, taken the 30 Italian crew prisoner, and fastened the tow
ropes. As the Nuneaton went alongside the German ship one of the explosive
charges with a premature fuse went off blowing Guise, who was on the bridge,
onto the foredeck and knocking a Mills bomb out of his hand. Fortunately the pin
had not been withdrawn.
Startled but not deterred, Newington and Abell and the two commandos hitched
on the tow ropes and Nuneaton started towing out the two German ships. Shortly
after, the larger charges on the anchor of the Italian liner went off and the Vulcan
took her In tow; a fairly tricky operation with such a large ship in a small harbour.
As the explosive charges went off the Spanish garrison woke up, bugles blared
and vehicles dashed down to the harbour in a pandemonium of noise and flashing
lights. In fact no shots were fired and both tugs got their ships out of the harbour
safely and put to sea, expertly navigated by the Marine Service officers. On the
way back the engines of the Nuneaton, which broke down twice on the outward
voyage, broke down again under the strain of the tow and caused considerable
anxiety in case they were re-captured by a Spanish naval launch and treated as
pirates. However repairs were effected after feverish activity by a Marine Service
engineer and the homeward voyage proceeded. At some stage a Royal Navy
escort met up with the flotilla and they reached Lagos without further alarm. It Is
said that in the dark days of the War in February 1942 the news of the daring and
successful expedition caused Churchill a brief chuckle of satisfaction when he
was informed.
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